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Great Energy Challenge Grantee: Ghonsla

Project: Insulation Retrofits in Pakistan

Location: Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), Pakistan

Summary: Ghonsla is a social enterprise that provides effective and affordable insulation to underserved markets in Pakistan. Ghonsla works with existing community-based organizations in forest-dependent communities in Pakistan to create a program to empower men and women socially and economically through extending credit to them for insulation retrofits and also through employing them in the promotion and potentially installation of the insulation.

This project aims to catalyze insulation retrofits with an initial focus on 1,000 households. This will lead to 1) reduction in pressure on forests (over 600 tons of wood saved per year) 2) mitigation of GHG emissions (over 1,000 tons per year) 3) a direct increase in disposable income within communities (more than $76,000, out of which $68,000 is from energy savings per year and $8,000 directly through local employment) and 4) employment of over 40 people to service growing insulation demand (past the 1,000 households).

Goal: Make energy efficiency affordable for all, conserve precious environmental resources and create opportunities for micro-entrepreneurship and green collar jobs in high need communities in Pakistan.

Project participants: Ghonsla (Zehra Ali, CEO)

The Great Energy Challenge grant program, in collaboration with a distinguished group of scientists acting as the board of advisors, awards roughly a half-dozen grants per year. The goal of the grant program is to hasten the growth of promising, global energy solutions as a response to climate change, energy resource constraints and environmental limitations.